The present invention relates to a coin lifting mechanism for transferring coins or tokens (hereinafter referred to as "coins") used in automatic vendor, automatic cash dispensers, automatic money changing machines, game machines and the like, from a low position to an elevated position in the machine.
A typical example of a game machine which uses coins is a slot machine. To play a conventional slot machine, a player takes coins in a coin tray provided at the bottom front portion of the game machine and inserts the coins one-by-one into a coin charging slot also provided at the front of the machine. The player then selects a playing mode and pulls a start lever to start the game. An improved type of slot machine automatically transfers coins into the machine without requiring them to be fed one-by-one into the coin charging slot. A slot machine of the automatic coin charging type has a main hopper similar to that used in conventional machines for accommodating and dispensing coins. In addition, a smaller hopper referred to as a sub-hopper is provided for temporarily storing coins charged automatically from outside the machine and feeds out the coins. Because the coin tray which receives the coins that are dispensed is located in a lower portion of the machine, a charging slot for automatic charging of the coins from the coin tray is also located at a lower portion of the machine. The main hopper is disposed at an elevated position for dispensing the coins. Consequently, the coins must be transferred upward from the sub-hopper to the main hopper.
When a coin feed-out mechanism employs a rotary disk of the same type as that of the dispensing mechanism used in the main hopper for feeding coins out of the sub-hopper, the presence of improper coins can give rise to a problem. The rotary disk mechanism feeds out coins in serial contact so that the driving force can be transferred to the coins successively to push the coins upward and forward. Lifting the coins requires a relatively large amount of driving force. To screen out improper coins, however, a coin selector must be installed downstream of the sub-hopper. At the same time, the coins must be transferred upward from the sub-hopper to the main hopper because of their relative positions. Because of the presence of the coin selector, the force exerted on the coins by the sub-hopper cannot be used as the driving force for transferring the coins.
In addition, the difficulty of lifting the coins can be caused by factors other than the presence of a coin selector. The problem can be found in automatic vendors, automatic cash dispensers, automatic money changing machines and the like, and is present when the force of feeding out the coins cannot be utilized to lift the coins.
Furthermore, coin transfer speed in the slot machine is preferably equal to or slightly faster than the speed that a player would manually charge the coins successively into the charging slot of a conventional machine. It is desirable to achieve such coin transfer speed.